


familiar.

by pyroallerdyce



Series: a dyad in the force (aka all my ben/rey fics) [14]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Dreams vs. Reality, F/M, Memory Loss, No Dialogue, Short One Shot, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-25 17:27:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22299703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyroallerdyce/pseuds/pyroallerdyce
Summary: Ben's eyes opened slowly, revealing the dull white ceiling above him, stained brown in places where water had once leaked through.  It was the same ceiling he saw every morning, every single morning for the last six months, and yet it still felt unfamiliar and strange.Everything felt unfamiliar and strange.or:  Ben Solo has no memory from anything before the last six months, a head full of nightly dreams about a galactic war and someone named Kylo Ren, and when he meets his doctor's receptionist Rey, suddenly something finally feels familiar.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: a dyad in the force (aka all my ben/rey fics) [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601755
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	familiar.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Grey_Summers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grey_Summers/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Scarlett. I told you this was a little weird, so I just hope you like it.
> 
> As always, if you like what you read here, please let me know via a comment or a kudos or a bookmark so that I know I'm not writing into a void. Enjoy!

Ben's eyes opened slowly, revealing the dull white ceiling above him, stained brown in places where water had once leaked through. It was the same ceiling he saw every morning, every single morning for the last six months, and yet it still felt unfamiliar and strange. 

Everything felt unfamiliar and strange.

He climbed out of the bed and headed towards the tiny bathroom with the even tinier shower, starting up the spray and letting his clothes drop down to the floor. The water was cold, as usual, but even that wasn't familiar to him. Nor were the cold white tiles that lined the shower walls or the pink flamingos that dotted the shower floor.

Everything felt unfamiliar and strange.

He'd opened his eyes six months ago and found himself on a bench in a park in this town, with no recollection of who he was or how he'd gotten there. A search through clothes that looked strange had led him to a wallet, and inside the wallet had been an identification card with his picture and the name Ben Solo. 

Everything felt unfamiliar and strange.

It was definitely his name, according to the police who had been called when he hadn't left the park. They did a search of their database inside the thing they'd called a computer, declared that there was no missing persons report for him, and offered to take him to a hospital. Ben declined it, and the officer working with him had said goodbye.

Everything _was_ unfamiliar and strange.

He'd sat on the sidewalk outside the police headquarters and searched through the wallet some more, found a card with the name of a bank on it, and wandered the town until he found a building with the same name. He watched person after person walk up to a machine and put the card into it and then walk away with money, so once the sun had gone down and there was no one around, he walked up to the machine and put his card into it. It asked for his PIN and he stared at the screen and the buttons until a series of four numbers appeared in his head. 5956. He punched them in and suddenly he had access, and he pushed buttons for this and that until he worked out that he had a shitload of money and then how to make the machine give him some.

He found a FOR RENT sign in front of a building and went inside, and soon he was being shown to the small apartment on the third floor and then walking down into the manager's office to sign the lease. The manager was worried about his apparent lack of a job, but he assured him that he had the money to make the rent and then remembered to sign Ben Solo on the dotted line.

Later, he sat in his new apartment and thought about that series of numbers for a long time until he decided that they stood for the word KYLO.

And that's when he remembered the lightsaber.

The lightsaber had appeared in every dream he'd had since, and he determined that it must have dominated his dreams during the times he didn't remember too. And in those dreams, he was Kylo Ren, and with that lightsaber glowing red beside him, he was feared by an entire galaxy. 

Ben eventually decided that he must have created that galaxy in his head as a place to escape to because his life had been so horrid. Though he was confused as to why he would imagine himself as someone who was quite clearly the villain.

He remembered dreaming about the lightsaber again while he was in the shower, and he lost himself in his memories of the dreams until he realized he was going to be late for his appointment. He climbed out of the shower and got dressed, walked out of the apartment and then the building, and he had to sprint to the bus stop, but he made it there just in time. The bus took him to the hospital, and then he walked two blocks south of it and into a tall building which housed a small office where his doctor was waiting.

He'd been seeing Doctor Snoke for a few months about his memory issues, but it felt like he'd known the man his entire life. And he wasn't entirely certain that it was a coincidence that after he started seeing Doctor Snoke, Kylo Ren's master named Snoke appeared in his dreams, guiding Kylo Ren throughout this battle for the galaxy.

When he walked into the still unfamiliar office, there was something even more unfamiliar about it because a young woman was sitting behind the desk when there used to have been a young man. And so Ben paused, and he probably stared uncomfortably for a moment before stepping forward to check himself in. And that's when he met Rey, Doctor Snoke's new receptionist, and when he shook her hand for the first time, he nearly jumped from the shock of a touch that felt familiar in all the ways that everything else was unfamiliar.

But before he could say anything about it, Doctor Snoke came into the waiting area and called him back into his office. He told Doctor Snoke that Rey's touch was familiar even though nothing else was about her was, and Doctor Snoke made some notes on that. On the bus ride home, Ben determined that they were probably notes about how crazy he was.

That night he dreamed of the lightsaber again, and this time, there was someone new. A young woman named Rey to battle Kylo Ren. And the Rey in his dreams looked quite a bit like the Rey at Doctor Snoke's office.

He began to look forward to his appointments with Doctor Snoke because it meant he got to spend a few minutes talking to Rey. And with every new piece of information he learned about Rey, from her favorite bands to the coffee shop she liked to hang out at, Kylo Ren's connection with his Rey deepened. 

Then came the day that Rey asked him if he'd like to get coffee with her at the coffee shop, and Ben found himself grinning and saying yes. And at the coffee shop that evening, he met Poe, Finn, and Rose, Rey's friends. He had more fun than he could ever remember having, and when Rey asked him at the end of the night if he'd like to do it again sometime, he didn't hesitate to say yes.

That night, the dreams had new characters. There was Poe Dameron, a pilot that Kylo captured, and FN-2187, a stormtrooper that that rebelled. Poe was undoubtedly the pilot and once he saw the stormtrooper with his helmet off, he knew that he was Finn. He wondered the next morning where Rose was but figured she'd show up eventually.

His coffee shop meetings with Rey and her friends continued, and then they turned into dates with Rey alone, and as he grew closer to Rey, so Kylo Ren did to his Rey. And it all felt so real and so familiar, and he began to wonder if he was going mad.

Doctor Snoke assured him that he wasn't.

He accidentally referred to Kylo Ren once in front of Rey, and before he even realized what was happening, they were engrossed in a conversation about these dreams of a galaxy far, far away that they apparently shared. He filled Rey in on all the things that Rey didn't know, and Rey filled him in on all the things that he didn't know, and then they were at Rey's apartment and kissing and tearing off each other's clothes and falling into bed together.

Neither of them thought it was weird when Kylo Ren and his Rey did the same in their dreams.

After several more months, Doctor Snoke announced that he was ready to declare that the memory loss was permanent. He apologized profusely for not being able to give Ben the answers that he sought.

A year earlier, Ben probably would have been thoroughly upset by that. But instead, he just thanked Doctor Snoke for his time and moved on with his life. Because he had a life now, not just the emptiness of before. He had a coffee shop full of friends and a head full of dreams of a galactic war.

But most importantly, he had Rey. 

And Rey felt familiar.


End file.
